I have a project for biology and i have to write the function of the organelles in an animal cell.I've gotten the meaning for vacuoles but am still having a hard time understanding it. If someone could please explain the funtion that would be helpful.Thank you

MrMistery wrote:there are no vacuoles in animal cells. Vacuoles are only found in photosynthetic organisms, some protozoans and fungi. So you don't need to write down vacuoles.

I thought there are temporary vacuoles in non-photosynthetic cells too. For example, the food vacuoles formed when the plasma membrane cleaves inward to form a temporary vacuole containing the food particles. And, there are many other temporarily-formed vacuoles called vesicles in a cell. We have pinocytotic vesicles and phagocytotic vesicles known as phagosomes. However, the vacuoles (large central vacuoles) in plant cells are always much bigger than the temporary vacuoles in animal cells.

If I am not mistaken, these temporary vacuoles are also considered a type of vacuoles.

That's what I know. Do correct me if I got wrong.

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Until about 30-40 years ago, nobody really knew much about how intracellular vesicular traffic really worked. Thus, they designated cellular structures by their shape in the microscope. That is why old books make confusions for such term as that of vacuole. Any modern cellular biology course will tell you that vacuoles are the counterparts of lysosomes. Actually, they are pretty much the same thing, only they have different sizes. They both employ the mannose-phosphate tag, the targeting sequences are similar, they both use proton pumps to generate a low pH etc. Of course, they have many different functions and proteins because they evolved for different purposes, but for the most part they are very similar. You will never find both lysosomes and vacuoles in the same cell. It just makes no sense. About vesicles: never, ever confuse vesicles with vacuoles. Vesicles are for transport, they have much smaller sizes and are used between all compartments of the endomembrane system (ER, Golgi, Plasma membrane and lysosomes).

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Its cotroversial if you want to make it. "Temporary vacuoles" as you call them are not vacuoles. Food vacuoles are referred to by that term for historic reasons. However, in cell biology today it is pretty clear what that the vacuole is that "central vacuole" from plants (I don't really like that term, because it doesn't have to be in the center of the cell). Some zoologists still say animal cells have vacuoles, because some are not up-to-date with a vacuole actually means in present days...

Hope this helps clear things up

"As a biologist, I firmly believe that when you're dead, you're dead. Except for what you live behind in history. That's the only afterlife" - J. Craig Venter

MrMistery wrote:there are no vacuoles in animal cells. Vacuoles are only found in photosynthetic organisms, some protozoans and fungi. So you don't need to write down vacuoles.

There ARE vacuoles in animal cells, they are just not as big or have much of a function in animal cells.As for the function of vacuoles

Removing unwanted structural debrisIsolating materials that might be harmful or a threat to the cellContaining waste productsMaintaining internal hydrostatic pressure or turgor within the cellMaintaining an acidic internal pHContaining small moleculesExporting unwanted substances from the cell

No there are not. Check any cellular biology textbook written after the year 2000. I recommend Alberts et al., but for simple things like this pretty much any book will do. And wikipedia is not always the most reliable source. For example vacuoles do not export anything from the cell, because plant cells are unable to carry out exocytosis.

"As a biologist, I firmly believe that when you're dead, you're dead. Except for what you live behind in history. That's the only afterlife" - J. Craig Venter